I ran my first marathon at age 18 after my freshman year of college. I had been running for three years and averaged about 80 miles/week for the three months leading up to the marathon. I finished in 3:15 and recovered just fine within a couple of weeks (no residual soreness etc.) I recovered well because I was done growing and I had been doing fairly high mileage.Many if not most marathons have a minimum age limit of 18, this is in place to protect many younger runners from themselves or from overzealous coaches/parents. Yes, some runners under 18 handle running a marathon, but most are just not physically mature enough to handle it without having a high risk of long term damage.

High schoolers shouldn't be running marathons until they are AT LEAST 18. It will mess with your growth and cause injuries. You have your whole life to run marathons, stick with cross country now. You can only run high school XC ONCE!!

yeah, i'm a high school senior who's just about to graduate.my xc friends and i (four of us total) ran green bay together. it was kind of just an alternative to running track. we never topped 55mpw but instead focused on long runs on saturdays, building up to 19 and 20 milers. we all finished at 3:22 (our goal was sub 3:30).while its too early to tell, we all appear to be recovering fine.

just did my first last november. (jr. year of college) Didnt really train specifically for it-only had one 17 mile long run-but i was in the best shape of my life and figured why the hell not?

I was moving along at a pretty decent 7:30 clip until the self-implosion began at 20 miles and I trudged home in 3:28, with a blazing 58 minute last 10k.

I had 2 socks soaked in blood (which I saved), lost 2 toenails (which i also saved, thank you), and had the time of my life. The moral of the story: if you're really into running long distances and pushing yourself then by all means go for it. Just be aware of the pain that comes with the ecstasy, and put it off until an opportune time if you have to....which usually means waiting till you graduate from high school, given the training regimens for XC and indoor/outdoor track.

recovery was quick & easy....to me it felt like just another sunday long run afterward. It was like "oh i ran a marathon, thats nice. Time to go on with the rest of my day." Aside from the throbbing of my big toes, which lasted a day or two, i was more or less entirely pain free in the ensuing days.

Bottom line: get your body used to running lots of miles before you try anything.

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WWRD

(What Would Rexing Do?)

[http://This message has been edited by the kenyan (edited Jun-07-2006).|http://This message has been edited by the kenyan (edited Jun-07-2006).]

I'm 16, and I'm going to be a junior in high school this fall. I've just sort of embarked on the journey towards running a marathon. I've read about how it can be horrible for your body, and I actually tend to agree. My plan is to work up to being able to be somewhat competitive in the half marathon distance by the time I graduate from high school, and be able to do a marathon before graduating college.

I don't really have a set plan for doing this, I'm just hoping to slowly build up my mileage over the next few years until I feel I'm ready.